Two newlyweds become enraptured and inseparable in this story by Spanish writer Ray Loriga.

Dialogue and debate on issues surrounding literary translation at talks, workshops, summer schools and residence programmes—along with translation studies courses covering linguistic concepts, theories…

Reading what passes for the interview nowadays, one often wonders if the author has died—and been replaced by their publicist. So when we run across a genuinely-engaged literary conversation in…

Alix Ohlin is the author of The Missing Person, a novel, and Babylon and Other Stories. She lives in Easton, Pennsylvania. In her first post for WWB, she talks about her experience at the Château…

Recently I was having a conversation with a friend about literary malaise, or to be more precise, we were talking about malaise in general. We reached the conclusion that there are quite a few different…

Earlier this month, Words Without Borders featured a piece by Lawrence Venuti on the business side of publishing books in translation. Venuti’s article was written for the Frankfurt Book Fair Panel…

The streets of Karachi are alive. Each day, as we drive out, there is something new to see, to read: all the walls around the city are plastered with political slogans, candidate endorsements and poetry…

Whilst writing about English PEN's “Writers in Translation” committee, of which I am a member—tapping into my experiences as an editor, agent and publicist—the idea of doing…

Andrzej Franaszek is a literary critic and cultural editor of the Polish weekly Tygodnik Powszechny. He is the author of Ciemne źródło (Dark Spring), which discusses the subject of suffering…

From to time to time, a Dutch publisher will ask me to write a preface or an afterword to a book he plans to publish. I have written prefaces for authors as different as Machiavelli, Stendhal and Boris…

Alissa Valles was born in Amsterdam to an American father and a Dutch mother. She grew up in the USA and the Netherlands and studied Slavic languages, literature and history at the School of Slavonic…

Translator’s Introduction1. Reflections on the ManhwabangI grew up in South Korea in the 1960s during the Park Chung-hee years, back in the day when comic books, or manhwa, were classified as one…

In these wicked times people aren't interested in wings. Even at two for the price of one.

At the Frankfurt Book Fair, where thousands of publishers from around the world annually squeeze inside huge exhibition halls to buy and sell foreign rights, a typical booth contains several tiny tables…

Magdy El Shafee’s Metro, the first adult Arabic graphic novel, is set in a chaotic modern Cairo pulsing with financial and social insecurity. Shihab, a young software designer who has been forced…

The island lights look like the stars came down from the sky and queued up.

Don't tell me you want to return to those days without democracy, the PRI's?

By Nicole Rudick The appeal of some translated works lies in their ability to relate specific events to a broad foreign audience. Others operate in reverse, projecting a nonspecific vantage that…

The longlist for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize has been announced. It’s gratifying to see so many fine writers in translation all lined up. Just as heartwarming to have featured work by…

by Anna FrajlichCynthia Haven talks to Anna Frajlich about exile, aesthetics, ethics and more in the work of Zbigniew Herbert. You can read Anna Frajlich’s essay on Herbert’s “Apollo…

For independents committed to discovering and showcasing new voices—be they home-grown or from foreign climes—2008 looms as a year of reckoning. In October 2007, Arts Council England‘s…

In the early fall of 2006, I traveled to Peru to visit an American woman, Lori Berenson, who has been incarcerated in Peru since December 1995 on charges of terrorism. I wrote about it for a Dutch newspaper…

Over at Three Percent, Karl Pohrt, owner of Shaman Drum bookstore and part of a US delegation of booksellers visiting the Beijing book fair, has been blogging his visit to China. Karl’s most recent…

Sehba Sarwar‘s first novel Black Wings was published in 2004 (Alhamra Publishing). Her essays, poems and stories largely deal with issues of gender and displacement, and have been published in anthologies…

by Anna FrajlichAnna Frajlich talks about aesthetics and ethics in Herbert's “Apollo and Marsyas.” Anna Frajlich has been called “the best Polish poetess of her generation.”…

Happily on theme for this month’s focus on Polish literature, the Polish Book Institute, Polish Cultural Institute in London, Polish Cultural Institute in New York and W.A.B. Publishing House in…